Battle Of The Shops

On Saturday, May 22 Automatic magazine put on its Battle Of The Shops contest in the parking lot outside of Adio’s new warehouse in Carlsbad, California.

The contest operated on a pretty cool premise: have four one-hour contests on four different obstacles (a double set, a tranny setup, a tech center, and a ten-stair rail), and have shops send a four-man team to compete.

A huge turnout of competitors and fans enjoyed the skating and live music under the beating sun. The double set was the first event of the day. Street Machine’s Jimmy Carlin put down some impressive stuff: double flip and a hardflip. The tranny setup was next and won the most exciting event to watch category. Guys like Jay Henry, Steve Roche, Zarosh, and Ricardo Carvalho went nuts.

Lastly, of course, was the San Dieguito rail. Every kid can apparently do multiple tricks down a ten-stair, so this was the most blown-out session of the day. The entire event seemed really hard to judge but somehow Val Surf came out on top—probably due to its high-profile team of Joey Brezinski, Ricardo Carvalho, and Justin Eldridge—and got the stuffed-deer-head trophy.

The contest was a good idea that was well executed. Cheers to Automatic and all the sponsors. Hopefully they’ll have more of these.